Pod or Not? Do We Die When Our Ship Does?

[Schmack]

Hello,

I've read some threads here that suggest we PCs escape the lifeless fuselage of the ship upon destruction and escape back to the station. I've read that it's stated somewhere by FD in fact. Because of this they say we are not cloned. I pose this question to you then:

Why do we incur a murder charge when we destroy an unwanted ship? Shouldn't we just incur the charge for destruction of the ship, or attempted murder? Even then, how can we attempt murder in a game where murder isn't possible?

Do NPCs die? If so, why do I see them in other systems? If not, why do they say "see you in hell" when they get destroyed?


So if you get blown up in a station, do you escape pod to that station, do you have to escape pod out of it? What if you run into a star? How do you escape pod out of that?

I realize this is a game and concepts are proposed to aid immersion, however I'd like to know, pod or death, which one?

 

[StephenB]

Take the red pill or the blue pill.

It's always pod until Iron man mode is released where it would be death.

Spoiler

It's unfortunate that there isn't much explained on this or why you incur murder charges for commanders escaping.

 

[Arry]

Oh, gud?

We have had this chat; with some interesting theories, however, no real answers.

If you believe, in some form of god, like thing, then this is the same. Based on 'faith', but not a lot of rocks and sand, persecution, kind of faith. The, I require no proof of my existence, your faith alone is enough to make me be etc. kind of faith. This is more of a futuristic, electronic kind of faith.

They say that you 'will' return to your last save point: Therefore you do. believe, because it is real, the miracle has been seen by all.


Arry

 

[deMangler]

At the moment it is impossible to die. However, it will be possible when Iron-man is implemented, but for balance reasons Iron-man commanders will never be matched with immortal ones.
This is why we get station messages about "Fatal Responses" and so-on, even though your commander will never die. According to game lore pilots are very mortal it is just that in the default game mode escape capsules are automatic and infallible - even if you fly into a black hole. Just read the book "Elite: Legacy" by Micheal Brookes, or other official Elite fiction. It is very possible to die in the Elite universe.
Eventually the game will catch up with the lore, as in this DDA Final Proposal. But for now it is just the case that all Commanders are effectively immortal.

 

[Greyhawk]

You have to sometimes concede its a game and just live with it. If anyone has ever read Jack Vance's Way Station

Spoiler

The teleport there works where the body dies at the start of the teleport but is reconstructed at the destination teleport so you continually die and reform when teleporting. It could work like this in ED. You get ported on destruction but your body has died - hence murder charge and also hence why you get a pittance for a bounty as the body isn't really dead

 

[Archgeek]

Chicken lamps and weasel beams, do none read the official manual? Sure pilots were plenty mortal back in the old ELITE, but it's over a century later. All mass-produced starships have an escape system now:

If your ship is destroyed, your personal escape system will kick in and eject you from the ship,
micro-jumping you to the last starport you docked in, where you will be processed by the authorities and your insurance company.

I'm guessing there's a wee little FSD in the pilot's chair, with a lot of range since a pilot's going to weigh quite a bit less than a tonne. I'm a bit surprised they didn't go with the old Rem-Lock stasis-and-beacon system, but I'm guessing early testers preferred to respawn immediately.

 

[Elriuhilu]

The way I see it, it's a murder charge because of the legal definition in universe. You've destroyed the ship, the means of survival of the pilot, with the intent of killing them. Whether they ejected at the last second is irrelevant, especially since non automatic escape pods are planned.
As for how you survive your ship blowing up, your chair is an ejection seat. If you look at the cockpit pictures you'll see there are thrusters on your chair and the flight controls are part of the arm rest. The little screen between your legs is probably how you navigate. Presumably the chair has a tiny, weak frame shift drive to get you to a station.

 

[parry]

Well, if your ship is destroyed in the tutorial, you eject.

With that said, they probably removed this little animation to make respawning a little faster.

 

[Zplintz]

When your ship is blown up you are transported to the last station you docked at via an auto ejecting pod. The alternative as discussed in the DDF was an Ironman mode where you had to hit the escape pod button before your ship blew or you did die. Not sure why this mode has never been implimented. Perhaps FD are not yet happy enough with stability, combat logging and a number of other cheats and bugs to be prepared for the inevitable cries of foul play from anyone in Ironman mode.

FD could have made that an animation sequence and they coukd have made us sit in the pod while that happened. They haven't.

There are enough complaints about 5 mins spent flying in SC, I don't imagine those complaints would have bren lessened by spending that time or a great deal more for anyone 100's or 1000's of light years away from their last docked staton. Perhaps it should have been a hyperspace sequence and then arrival at the station or maybe even a choice.

The answer to the OP is that we don't die in ED we are magically, instantly transported back to the last station we docked at when our ship is blown.

 

[Stern Winter]

Hmm, got to jury-rig a couple of ejector seats for my next Buckyball A* attempt. Biggest problem will be convincing the NavCom of the first seat that I've originated from Sag A.

For anyone interested in the event, the thread can be found here:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=138772

 

[Enride]

There are some "explanations" but none is really satisfactory.
Right now the best is just to "ignore and accept" as the current implementation of these escape pods is unconsistent and shallow.

-we dont see any escape pods shoot out from ships or flying into stations.
-we appear instantly at a station upon destruction, no time needed for pod to reach it.
-we are convicted of murder when no one was actually killed.
-NPCs react as if they are dying when they arent


From gameplay perspective this is of course done as a safety for players, completely understandable, but it could easily be implemented in a more consistent way.
Simplest solution would be to apply cloning.
Not much else needed, upon festruction your ship transmits your concionssness through tachyon signals to the station at hand which implements this data into a "fresh" clone.

Still more realistic then the current flightmodel

 

[Frog]

I'm afraid you cannot find any lore behind the way it's handled now because it's just another part of the game that is unfinished. I'm sure that there were plans to implement some escape pod mechanics. Those were always part of Elite, dating back to the original.

But, you know, at FD's studios there must be a cutting room with a terrible mess on the floor.

And I really miss that. I can still remember the moment when playing the original when I shot down an escape pod by accident. I felt a sting of guilt. I think this was the first time that a computer game managed to give me such a feeling.

 

[Renegade Roach]

There are some "explanations" but none is really satisfactory.
Right now the best is just to "ignore and accept" as the current implementation of these escape pods is unconsistent and shallow.

-we dont see any escape pods shoot out from ships or flying into stations.
-we appear instantly at a station upon destruction, no time needed for pod to reach it.
-we are convicted of murder when no one was actually killed.
-NPCs react as if they are dying when they arent


From gameplay perspective this is of course done as a safety for players, completely understandable, but it could easily be implemented in a more consistent way.
Simplest solution would be to apply cloning.
Not much else needed, upon festruction your ship transmits your concionssness through tachyon signals to the station at hand which implements this data into a "fresh" clone.

Still more realistic then the current flightmodel

I do wish they'd sort some of those things out. It's another aspect of the game which feels like it was only half thought through (a long time ago) and has not been revisited. I do laugh though every time somebody refers to this game as a 'sim', for these and many other reasons.

 

[SteveLaw]

The thing that breaks the "escape pod" concept, for me, is the instant teleporting to the last station you docked at. Why the last station where you where docked? You might be thousands of lys away. There might be thousands of stations that are closer between your point of ejection and your last station. And it happens in no time at all. I want to be able to plug the escape pod FSD into my ship please. Instant travel anywhere in the galaxy without requiring fuel...

 

[Vasious]

Several of the ships have emergency escape hatches

On the Sidewinder for example

Spoiler

 

[iSteel]

These questions are answered in manual. Arkgeek already copied the escape pod part, I will do it for the murder:
"Murder: The act of destroying a ship that is not wanted in the local jurisdiction"

I guess NPC's have it the same way as we do and they do not really die but eject with escape pod. There can be only one "Koistinen" in the universe, and how many time you have killed him/her?

 

[vizvayu]

They should implement those escape pods once and for all. It's a basic part of gameplay... I don't understand why they're implementing things like mining drones but we still seem to magically teleport after the destruction of our ships.
Just and example of how they could implement this: After ejecting (and IF we decide to eject; it should be OUR choice) the pod should remain floating in space (it's too small to have thrusters or an FSD) while consuming life support oxigen. The closest big enough, non-wanted NPC ship should scoop us and take us to the nearest station. This should be in realtime. Instant respawning is OK for fast, shallow action games like Counter Strike and Mario Bros, but not for a space sim.
In case we run out of air, or if our pod gets destroyed, we should simply die and respawn in a cloned body in the last station we visited that has clonning facilities (and not every station should have clonning facilities), and in which we have a clone. Buying a clone beforehand must be a requirement (let's try and make it credible), and at the time we buy it out mind is stored as a "backup". Maybe they could make a small compromise and give us a free permanent clone in the system we started.
Another important change is that insurance should give us credits, and not a new completely fitted ship. And obviously it should be paid beforehand and be optional. But there are many threads about insurance already so I won't talk more about that here.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

All adding the escape pods does is add a delay between death and being able to fly again.

Cue the people who can only play a few hours a day disliking it in a big way, further advantages to those who play the game constantly etc etc.
Also what kind of game rewards players who don't play it?
Finally what happens to explorers 60,000LY from home, do they have to sit and watch an NPC (that doesn't exist that far out), jump 2500 times back to civilisation? May as well leave the pc running overnight..


I personally wouldn't mind some sort of cutscene video lasting about 30 seconds (some with wreckage for combat deaths, a lifeless ship for fuel related problems etc. Possibly even a revival scene) in between the death and restart point but no major time penalty. Keep it roughly as it is but flesh it out a bit since when we're dead we can't do anything anyway so a cutscene wouldn't matter.

(Edit, I realised slightly off topic but the OP's question has been answered )

 

[peteuplink]

Perhaps a sample of the pilots DNA is taken, and they undergo some sort of consciousness transference, and are essentially "backed up" and stored. When the live body dies a clone is grown from the DNA sample and the consciousness uploaded into the new body?

 

[Gray Lensman]

What I don't get is the inconsistency. Station announcements state that trespassing and/or infringements will result in DEATH. Frontier states that ship destruction never results in death. Make your mind up please ...